Far from the Madding Crowd

1967

It's maybe not up there in the pantheon of British classics, but there’s something highly relaxing and radical about the fact that Schlesinger articulates this classical story with breathy longeurs, and it never feels like the text has been forcibly compressed for aid of those with low attention spans.

The most welcome rerelease of recent weeks is a gleaming new restoration of John Schlesinger’s glorious Far From the Madding Crowd (1967), which dwarfs Thomas Vinterberg’s respectable new adaptation in every formal and emotional sense; Nicolas Roeg’s widescreen photography has never looked more lustrous on your TV screen.